Pseudochrnilabrus nicholsi

[Klaus Steinhaus]

I'm keeping these fish now for a while but have never bothered to remove a holding female and grow out the fry until a few month ago. My male (below) is a good 3 1/2" and the females about 2 1/2". The males are very rough on the females and it is best to keep 3-4 females and one male in a species tank.



Once the fry reached about 1/2", I moved them to one of my grow-out tanks with some Cryptoheros (Arcocentrus) myrnae and things were fine. This morning I wanted to take some photos and when I got to this particular tank I thought my eyesight is failing me. The juvenile nicholsi are about 1" to 1 1/4" in size and one of the little females was holding. In over 40 years of cichlid keeping and breeding, that is the youngest and smallest holding cichlid female I have seen.

Juvenile female (~1")


Juvenile male (~1 1/4") female in background


These are the only West African cichlids I keep and I would be very interested to hear from those that specialize in these fish if this is normal.

[Youenn]

May be hav a look here:

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2923&p=32241&hilit=pseudocrenilabrus#p32241

[Dan Woodland]

Excellent picture Klaus. I've had these in the past but never was able to get a shot like that! Beautiful fish too!

[Nuchal Man]

Klaus, I experienced the same as you for bothe my Pseudocren. nicholsi and Pseudocren. multicolor multicolor. Although they have small spawns at that size, the females are remarkable holders for spawning for the first time.

[Paulo José Alves]

Hello

Yes, that´s typical of P. nicholsi. The females can hold eggs just being 1,5 cm long!... I had females doing it. Actually one time one young female had just one single egg in her mouth, it hatched and turned out to be a male.

[Klaus Steinhaus]

Thank you all for the responses. Nature sure is amazing.

[dbrummitt]

I also have nicholsi of the same size holding and also burtoni-burundi holding at barely an inch also and one just spit out about 10 tiny babies, so i am having the same breeding occur here also so it seems to be a normal thing. Great pics to and i can't wait for you to come and speak at out club meeting in June. Dustin B.